Some Americans just don't get it

This morning's New York Times once again reveals the ignorance, or, at best, the intentional neglect, of the facts of Catholicism by those who would write about that sacred faith.

In "Pope May Color Debate in U.S. Over 'Life' Issues Like Abortion", writer Robin Toner (one dare not call her a reporter), leads with this inscrutable remark:

"The election of an unstintingly conservative pope could inject a powerful new force into the intense conflicts in American politics over abortion and other social issues, which put many Catholic elected officials at odds with their church."

That the Holy Father is described as "unstintingly conservative" is like calling the New York Yankees "unswerving in being a baseball team". In other words, it's tautological. It's surprising that it wasn't reported that the papal conclave had elected a Holy Father that was "unstintingly male"; or that the College of Cardinals had foisted upon the waiting world a Pope who was "surprisingly Catholic."

Latent in the writer's commentary is a fundamentalist liberal (dare I say, American) notion that someday the Catholic Church could have a progressive Pope - a liberal Papa - who, in fact, could so transform the backward Church that maybe, in the not-too-distant future, the world could applaud the election of a female Pope (commonly known as a "Mope", I believe).

That the NYT writer implies that the Church could have elected a Pope other than an "unstinting conservative" reveals that far too many people view the Church's rôle as entirely human (lacking any divine inspiration or guidance); democratic and politically malleable, bending with the currents of modernity.

Moreover, that one of my belovéd family members should grieve that Pope Benedict XVI is in the "same vein" as John Paul II, indicates that even Catholics - American Catholics - fail to understand that ALL Popes are to be in the same vein. There is no "zeitgeist pope"; there is no Pope for today, another for tomorrow. Each Pope is the Vicar of Christ, the earthly stand-in for the Divine Savior of the world, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

That outsiders to the Faith particularly should chide the Church for being nothing other than itself - a bulwark against the whims of a capricious humanity - should remind us, not of the inflexibility of the Church, but of the instability of its critics.

(In other news, kudos to NYT columnist David Brooks for his astute commentary regarding Roe v. Wade. "Trenchant" comes to mind when considering his analysis.)

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

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